Big Decisions, Big Changes
by laurzz
Summary: DannyLindsay. Sort of a pre-ep for the S7 finale. "Cursing in frustration, Lindsay looked up from the array of paper bills that lay in front of her and threw her pen against the wall in fury."


**A/N: Okay, so I was re-watching the finale (for like the millionth time!) and this idea came to me, so I ended up pausing and writing this then and there. I won't explain it like I'n dying to, because it'll just give the story away. So, I shall say no more and let you just read.**

**One more thing. HELLO SEASON 8. WE'RE'A WAITING FOR YOU! :D**

**P.s. Thanks to Meggie for the read beforehand.**

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><p>Electricity, utilities, both of their cell phones, rent, Lucy's day care, groceries, health insurance, life insurance, gym membership, Metro-cards for the Subway, Lucy's college fund... it seemed that there was just no let up. Cursing in frustration, Lindsay looked up from the array of paper bills that lay in front of her and threw her pen against the wall in fury. For some reason, their outgoings this month seemed a hell of a lot more than usual. Lindsay, while being shockingly bad at Trigonometry, usually boasted of her natural ability for Math especially after finding out that Danny had failed Calculus back in High School. It was almost a running joke of sorts. However, today – she'd gotten the calculator after feeling that things weren't adding up. Her math must have been off because surely there was no way that their outgoings were more than their incomings. They weren't on bad salaries- hell, they were on good salaries that actually comfortably supported their life in New York. Except, she'd been right the first six times she'd added it mentally. Their outgoings were more than their incomings. How? Why?<p>

She took a deep breath as she went back over all of their outgoings and tried to figure out why their bank balance was so low for the month. Lindsay muttered under her breath as she picked up another pen lying nearby her pile of bills. She twiddled the said pen between her thumb and finger anxiously as she re-read their finances for the month. "This isn't good." She felt her stress levels rising again, leaving her with no other choice but to launch her pen in frustration.

"Hey, whoa!" Danny cried, catching the second pen that Lindsay had launched in nearly as many minutes as he made his way into the living room. "What's going on here? What did the pen do to you?"

"Don't Danny," she growled at him. "I'm stressing out."

"Over what?" he inquired as he took a seat next to her on the couch. "What's the problem?"

"I don't know if we're going to make ends meet this month," she confided in him. "I don't know where all of our money has gone."

"Well, it's been an expensive month," he pointed out. "We've had a lot of things to pay for."

"Like what?"

"Well, they jacked up Lucy's day care. Something about... I forget now, but that went up something ridiculous. Isn't it like an extra fifty a week? You know, I friggin' wonder about that place. How expensive can juice boxes be and apple slices be?"

Lindsay raked her fingers through her hair. "Ugh, I'd forgotten about that." She sighed, otherwise ignoring him.

"And then we went over our minutes this month, so that's extra that we've had to pay to the cell phone company." Danny continued on, "Not to mention the fifty we chipped in for Mac's birthday present a week or so ago. We hadn't allocated any money towards that."

"Shit," she cried.

"And then we made the last payment on the couch, remember? So that was like a hundred bucks more than what the monthly payments have been because it was the last one."

"Ugh." Lindsay grimaced as she realised how much they'd spent over the course of the month. "Danny, what are we going to do? There's not enough money to cover this."

"It'll be fine." He assured her. "Things always work out for us. You know that."

"How?" She implored. "It can't work out if there's nothing there."

"We've got money babe," He smiled at her, trying to calm her down. "We never go overdrawn. We've always got at least a hundred in the account before payday comes again... we'll just have to go into that reserve money we keep in there this month. It's no big."

"But... I'm just panicking." She slumped against him. "I feel like there's money going out of the account left, right and centre. We're only at the sixteenth, Danny. We've got the rest of the month to go yet."

"It's alright babe. We've got plenty of food in to last us... we just won't get take out for the next few weeks. That's a whole bunch of money saved right there."

"But that's like the one treat we get."

"Okay, so we have one as opposed to the three we usually have."

"Okay," She nodded, slowly accepting his compromises. "But that's just one little thing. It still doesn't make me feel any better."

"Alright, let me see this list of yours for a second, let me see if I can figure out what the deal is."

"You? Math?" she raised her eyebrows playfully, despite her current stress levels. "Don't make me laugh."

"Yeah, yeah smartass laugh it up. You heard me right. You might be surprised anyway; I've been having tutoring off some cute lab-tech who took a little pity on me, which is more than what I can say for you."

"Whatever." She smirked at him, pushing her workings over to him. "Just save the day for me Danny."

His eyes scanned over her cursive writing and the amounts she'd assigned to each of their outgoings. She usually rounded each amount up to the nearest dollar at the very least – sometimes even to five dollars to ensure that it was definitely covered... but this month, each of the totals were exactly what they needed to pay; down to the penny. His eyes ran their way down the list to the total left over and his eyes widened significantly as he realised that they would in fact find themselves overdrawn after all the bills were paid.

"Alright," he took a deep breath. "Which was the last bill to come through?"

"Um," she shuffled the array of bills before finding the one she'd been looking for. "Your gym membership. That came yesterday."

"Okay, so we'll cast that to the top of next month's pile and pay them then."

"Danny!" Lindsay cried. "We can't do that!"

"It's fine," he tried to assure her. "We're good with payments usually."

"And I'd prefer to keep it that way!" she cried.

"Alright," he held his hands up. "How about we don't put the two hundred into Lucy's college fund this month then? Put fifty or something in. We've been putting two hundred in religiously, and we can afford to take just a month break with it."

"But I don't want to..." Lindsay jutted her bottom lip out at her husband. "I want to be able to pay for her college tut-"

"Lindsay, sweetie, she's two. She's a smart cookie I'll give you that but we've got sixteen years until she needs this money, okay? And even then she might land herself a scholarship. So let's not throw our backs out at the thought of not putting the two hundred in this month. It's just for a month, okay?"

She sighed heavily. "Why do you have to talk sense?"

"Because I know a little bit about you," he smirked at her. "Just trust me babe, things will work out... And see, look-" he said, taking her pencil and adding the two hundred dollars to their total. "Look, our ends meet and everything is okay. We might even be able to afford two take outs!" he nudged her, trying to lighten her mood. "Things may not be so bad after all, see."

She frowned at him and laid her head on his shoulder. "I hate this sinking feeling though Danny, of not having money. We should have an abundance of money with the amount of damn overtime that we do! We should be rolling in it. So why aren't we?"

"Because we've got responsibilities and priorities that for some reason require all of our money." He sighed heavily. "Some months are just more expensive than others, and this just happens to be one of those months. It probably scared and stressed you out because we've never had to deal with it before; we've always had a little bit left over at the end of the month... and hey, for us to have gone that long without having money worries is pretty good if you ask me."

"Well, there was the time when we borrowed money from my parents." She reminded him.

"Lindsay, come on now, let's try and put this into perspective." he laughed. "That was for hospital bills. I don't think we could have predicted you having Lucy and me going in for a gunshot wound in my back during the same month really, could we?"

"Well no but... still!"

"I know," he pulled her into his side and pressed a kiss to her temple. "And your parents were superstars for not wanting any money repaid. They really saved us back then and they know how much we appreciate it."

"I know," she nodded as she wrapped her arms around his torso, letting him squeeze away all of her troubles in their embrace as he circled his own arms around her. "I just... I'm not good with stress like this. Stress with you in a wheelchair? Fine, I've got down like nobody's business now. Stress when Lucy's not feeling good – I'm good," he paused after a pointed stare from Danny, "Well, kind of" she giggled. "Stress with work – not an issue... but stress with money? That's something that is out of my control Danny and it freaks me out."

"And that, my sweetheart is what I'm here for, okay?" he smiled as he nudged her chin up, so that she was looking at him. He pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose before affectionately rubbing his against her's. "Don't worry about it. We'll just tighten our belts for the rest of the month and play it a little safer next month until we catch up. There's always a way around things. Don't worry about it."

She let out a prolonged sigh and nodded. "Okay... I guess I better get to on writing these cheques then."

"Nah," he said, waving it off as she moved away from him. "Go run a bath or something babe. Go relax for a little while. I can write the cheques."

"You sure?" she asked him.

"Positive," he nodded. "You did the hard bit. I'll just use the list you made and go with that. Don't worry about it."

She smiled brightly at him as she stood. She towered over him as he sat on the couch and she paused to press a kiss to his temple. She then cupped his face with her hands and repeated his earlier action of rubbing her nose against his'. "I love you; you always make things better for me."

He smiled in response as she disappeared from the living room, without even giving him the chance to return the 'I love you'. He let out a sigh before pushing himself up off their couch and onto the floor, as he leant over the coffee table and began to write the cheques he'd just promised Lindsay he'd do for her.

As he signed the remaining money in their bank account away, he felt a bubbling sensation in the pit of his stomach. He'd been in debates with himself for months now, but seeing Lindsay so stressed about money had essentially just helped him to make up his mind. Lindsay relied on him; as she should. He was her husband and as old school as it seemed, he couldn't help but feel that it was his responsibility to look after her and their daughter. There was nothing stopping him from going ahead with what he wanted to do other than the adjustments they'd have to make to their day-to-day life. He knew the initial transition would hit both himself and Lindsay hard; but in the long run it would be worth it. It would be _so_ worth it.

He knew that by doing this he'd not only make himself proud, but he'd really give Lindsay a reason to be proud of him - not that she wasn't proud of him anyway. When she'd asked him to save the day, he'd done so – but it had been a quick fix. This... this would make everything different; everything better. It'd be hard to get there. But, like he'd learnt through trial and error in his life, if it was worth having, then it was worth fighting for. It'd be hard work and he knew that, but he was more than capable to roll his sleeves up and get stuck in with some hard work.

When he looked to where he'd managed to get to in the NYPD after being told that being a CSI was simply a pipedream, he knew that he was capable of anything once he put his mind to it.

He took a deep breath as he steeled himself mentally. It was settled. He was going to take the upcoming Sergeant's exam. And not only was he going to take it... he was going to pass it.

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><p><strong>There we go, just a little idea that I couldn't shake. Hope you guys liked it. :) I'd love to know what you thought. Thanks for reading!<strong>


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